Everton Gayle

Turkey’s AKP party suffered a tough night at the hands of the electorate as it lost its overall majority in the parliamentary elections.

The ruling party had been hoping for a two-thirds majority in which it would have been able to change the constitution.

With all the votes yet to be counted, the AKP came in with 258 seats, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) won 132, the Nationalist Movement (MHP) had 81 while the HDP, competing for the first time as a party, secured 79.

Number of seats (based on latest results)

Number of seats (based on latest results)

In a rousing speech outside the AKP headquarters he said that his party was the clear winner and vowed to take all necessary measures to prevent harm to Turkey’s political stability.

Percentage of vote per party (latest results)

Percentage of vote per party (latest results)

He said: “We will continue in our efforts to write a new constitution. We have reached this democratic stage by following the principles of freedom.”

He added that no one should try to build a victory from an election they lost and that his party was determined to take Turkey into the future. He said whatever happened, the AKP would continue to run the country.

Oktay Vural, deputy leader of the MHP Party said it was too early to say whether his party would consider forming a coalition with AKP. He said: “It would be wrong for me to make an assessment about a coalition, our party will assess that in the coming period. I think the AK Party will be making its own new evaluations after this outcome.”

Erdogan no show
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had made it clear that he would not be a symbolic president in the mould of his predecessors in the run-up to the election.

Despite being obliged to sit above party politics, he had been at the centre of the election campaign. The 61-year-old had been campaigning for a presidential system, rather than the current parliamentarian model, and wanted the AKP Party to obtain a sufficient majority to change the constitution.

For this the party needed to have either 330 seats to be able to ratify the change through a referendum or 367 seats to achieve the goal without a popular vote.

It achieved neither, and as the scale of the party’s bloody nose took shape, with fewer than 300 seats gained, there was no sign of the president on election night.